Just as we had so decided and were still pursuing the high road, there
came, not half a mile away and again to our right, in a valley below us,
that curious sound which is like nothing at all unless it be dumping of
flints out of a cart: rifle fire. It cracked and tore in stretches. Then
there were little gaps of silence like the gaps in signalling, and then
it cracked and tore in stretches again; and then, fitfully, one
individual shot and then another would be heard; and, much further off,
with little sounds like snaps, the replies began from the hillside
beyond the stream. So far so good. Here was contact in the valley below
us, and the guns, some way behind and far off northwards, had opened. So
we got the hang of it instantly--the front was a sort of a crescent
lying roughly north and south, and roughly parallel to the great road,
and the real or feigned mass of the advance was on the extreme left of
that front. We were in it now, and that anxious and wearing business in
all hunting, finding, was over; but we had been on foot six mortal hours
before coming across our luck, and more than half the soldiers' day was
over. These men had been afoot since three, and certain units on the
left had already marched over twenty miles.

After that coming in touch with our business, not only did everything
become plain, but the numbers we met, and what I have called "the thick
of things," fed us with interest. We passed half the 38th, going down
the road singing, to extend the line, and in a large village we came to
the other half, slouching about in the traditional fashion of the
Service; they had been waiting for an hour. With them, and lined up all
along the village street, was one battery, with the drivers dismounted,
and all that body were at ease. There were men sitting on the doorsteps
of the houses and men trotting to the canteen-wagon or to the village
shops to buy food; and there were men reading papers which a pedlar had
brought round. Mud and dust had splashed them all; upon some there was a